Unhappy hotel workers smile through third hand smoking
Correspondent | Friday May 19, 2017 12:13
Despite her educational limitations, Maria Mogale (not her real name), a 34-year-old employee at a campsite in the Okavango Delta was determined to grin through smoke-filled rooms as she served her customers, including those who smoke cigarettes. She dreams of a future where she runs her on travel agency, and a campsite in the Okavango area. With all that she and fellow employees envisions smoke-free tourism resorts in the country, and hopes the law could be enforced to realise this.
The job has sustained her since she was 20 years, having not performed well in her Form 5 examinations.
It was in 2006 that she started off in the tourism industry as a laundry worker—washing, folding, sorting and ironing clothing and linens in the heartbeat of Botswana’s tourism hub.
Realising prospects of growth were quite limited in this department, Mogale would finish her job on time and then dash to the beverages unit to lend a hand, at the same time learning. She then moved to serve in the bar, where fortunately she has since climbed up the ladder to be beverages manager.
“I realised I was passionate about the beverages services, and one Australian woman who visited in early 2000s saw my love for that and offered to give me online lessons, and they were quite helpful,” she recalls.
But her climb up was not a child’s play, as she had to endure years of smiling through cigarette smoke-filled rooms as she made the rounds, making sure her pampered customers were adequately looked after.
Apparently, the smoke she was inhaling made life even more difficult for her as her health was badly affected.
“When I started working here, I had mild asthma but rapid exposure to second hand smoking made matters worse,” she says.
She fears to be named for fear of victimisation and possible job loss.
“Since I hadn’t gone far in schooling, this is the only job I know and it has sustained my two children, mother and siblings. But to be honest I used to live in hell while I was a waitress.”
Sadly, many more young women and men who come to eke out a living here eventually get what they never bargained for- health complications, she adds.
Impromptu interviews with casino workers at the up-market Avani Hotel, formerly Gaborone Sun, and the Grand Palm with regard to exposure to second-hand smoke indicated that the majority of them dislike this exposure at work and are cognizant that such exposure is harmful to their health.
Though they welcome the establishment of separate smoking and non-smoking areas for customers, they expressed desire for greater restrictions than those that exist at present.
“Separating smoking and non-smoking areas doesn’t help because when the door is open, it allows for passage of smoke to the other side. So, really, it serves no purpose,” said a worker who preferred anonymity.
Second-hand tobacco smoking can spread from one room to another within a building, even if doors to the smoking area are closed.
If you thought second-hand smoking was the worst, you probably have not heard about third-hand smoking. Toxic chemicals from second-hand tobacco smoke contamination persist well beyond the period of active smoking, and then cling to rugs, curtains, clothes, food, furniture and other materials. These toxins can remain in a room weeks and months after someone has smoked there even if windows are opened or fans or air filters are used, scientists have said.
“Filters can become a source for deposited chemicals that are then recycled back into the air of a room rather than removed. Tobacco toxins that build up over time, coating the surfaces of room elements and materials and smokers’ belongings, are sometimes referred to as third-hand smoke.”
Efforts to discuss this serious matter with hospitality top managers, and owners hit as snag as most declined to respond to questions.
Phologo Ntswetswe is a chef at Cresta Lodge in Gaborone and also a member of the Botswana Hotel Travel & Tourism Workers’ Union (BHT&TWU).
The union has been in existence for more than three years now, and one of the grave challenges they are grappling with is second and third hand smoking.
“It is a great concern to us since our members’ health is compromised. Good health is what gears us to perform, but sad realities prevail in this sector, and these require to be seriously and urgently addressed,” Ntswetswe said.
He is saddened by the fact that expectant mothers employed in the sector are made to stand harsh effects of secondary smoking.
“This is unacceptable,” he fumes impotently.
Plans are at an early stage, he says, to get employers to cover medical bills for employees who contract second and third-hand smoking-induced illness such as lung cancer, tuberculosis and others while on the job. There is no law compelling industry players to carry out routine health assessment, and this is top of the BHT&TWU lobby list.
“What’s on the ground recently is that some hotels do medical check-up as required for licence renewals,” he says, adding that they want the law to be stringent and force industry players to pay for workers’ insurance covers in the evident exposure to smoke result in health complications.
He too is of the view that instead of demarcating smoking and non-smoking areas, hospitality and conferencing facilities must be pronounced smoke-free because factors such as third-hand smoking render the whole concept obsolete.
Ntswetswe’s greatest worry, though no research has been done to substantiate this, is that most workers in the sector are smokers and exposure might have had an invisible hand in this trend.
“Most workers do smoke. The union is planning countrywide campaigns on this crucial matter,” he said.
He admits it is a mammoth task since issues like exploitation and racism among others are rife.
Ntshwetswe has more than a decade’s work experience in a hotel environment. He has smoked it all during those years of service because while attending to customers indulging at the bar counter, for instance, he is forced to compromise his health and honour the king-customer!
“Smoking is dangerous. Very deadly. And it is devastating that some of us catch its harmful effects not by choice, and as a voice of experience, I am pretty much looking for partnerships with organisations such as the Anti-Tobacco Network to assist in completely eradicating tobacco in our area of work,” he vows.
He vehemently believes that if this was attainable in the aviation industry, it is doable in the hotel and tourism sector as well.
Anti Tobacco Network (ATN) did this investigation